


Frozen

by aschicca



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Character Death, post-513
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-20
Updated: 2011-07-20
Packaged: 2017-10-21 14:13:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/226093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aschicca/pseuds/aschicca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter how hard he tries, Brian doesn’t seem to be able to shake off the icy cold he’s feeling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Frozen

The door slid closed behind him after Brian entered the loft. He was cold, so cold he was sure there had to be ice in his bones and muscles. It had been a very long while since the last time Brian had felt so cold, and he was feeling the overwhelming need to put a little warmth inside his body.

With only that thought in mind, Brian freed himself of all his clothes, abandoning them in front of the door in an uncharacteristic move and, naked and shivering, crossed the loft to reach his bathroom. Once there, he didn’t waste any time and quickly threw himself under the scalding cascade of his shower. The water kept raining over his head and body, and Brian kept shivering despite the heat.

Unwanted thoughts entered his mind, and he was too weak to fight them off. Brian saw a younger version of himself in his mind, a fifteen years old boy running out of the hell he was forced to call home, with sore ribs and a bleeding lip. He hadn’t had the time to put on his coat, and his feet were naked inside the hastily worn shoes… and it was snowing. Brian saw himself walking through the empty streets, arms hugging his body tight, head hung low and the tears he firmly refused to shed burning behind his eyelids. He remembered being sure the freezing cold that was seeping through his too light sweater and trousers while the snow fell on him, would never go away and he would never be able to feel warm again.

But then, thanks to some miracle, he had reached a house he had come to know better than his own. A house from which he never felt the need to run away. A house where there was always food and laughters and love… some of it even for him. Brian remembered his younger self hesitating in front of the door of the Novotny’s house, unsure if he should knock or just keep walking. But the cold inside his body and heart had been too much to bear alone anymore, and he had knocked.

“What are you doing here, kiddo? And dressed like that with this fucking snow! Come inside, quick!” Debbie had ushered him in and, once she had had him under the light, she had noticed his split lip and the way he was hugging himself… in a way that clearly showed he wasn’t doing it only to seek a warmth it seemed impossible to find. Brian could still clearly see her face change from anger to pain to compassion, and he hated the mere memory of that last look. He never had wanted people to pity him, not even at fifteen, and he remembered thinking that knocking on that door had been a big mistake. But then Debbie had pulled Brian in her arms and had hugged him close to her bosom, that smelled like marinara sauce and sun… and Brian had let her.

His arms had refused to let go of his own body and hug Debbie though, but she hadn’t seemed to mind and he had allowed her to hold him for a while.

“Brian?” Mikey’s voice had come from the stairs, and Brian had had no intention of letting his best friend see him like that; he had to be the strong one in their relationship, so he had disentagled his body from Debbie’s grip and forced out a smile.

“Hey, Mikey.”

“How come you’re here at this hour?”

Brian had shrugged, trying not to let out a grimace of pain at the movement, and had simply replied, “I was taking a walk and I decided to come see if you were still up.”

His declaration had elicited a smile on Michael’s face and Brian had felt himself relax. Of course he knew that Michael could still see the bleeding cut on his lip and the stiffness in his body, but his friend had chosen not to let the concern show and to concentrate on the fact that Brian had come to him that night. Brian felt grateful for that.

“Ok, let’s cut the bullshit. You,” and Debbie had pointed at Brian, “Upstairs. Lose all these wet clothes and take a shower. A hot one. Then I want you to come back down and eat what I’m about to go fix you. Got it?”

“I’m not really hungry, Deb…” Brian had started to say, only to be interrupted mid speech.

“Did I ask you if you were hungry? You’re going to eat my fucking food, and don’t you argue with me.”

Resisting the urge to salute the bossy woman, and feeling the hint of a smile on his face for the first time that night, Brian had followed a laughing Michael up the stairs and had thrown himself in the shower, letting his body feel the warmth it had so longed for.

It was the same warmth Brian was hoping the water could infuse in his icy body right now, but this time it eluded him. After a while, Brian gave up trying to melt the ice and got out of the shower. Finding that a simple towel around his hips wasn’t enough, Brian went to his room and wore black jeans and an equally black sweater. Then, barefoot and with his hair still wet, he came down the steps and headed towards the kitchen.

Leaning against the counter, Brian closed his eyes, suddenly feeling very tired, but Michael’s red rimmed ones kept worming their way in his mind, and Brian couldn’t stand to look at them anymore. Even if the ‘Brian and Mikey show’ wasn’t what it had been anymore, Brian still cared a great deal for Michael and to see him crying was still something that hurt him, too. Mikey was feeling pain and was letting the world see it, he was letting _Brian_ see it, and Brian wasn’t sure he could stand it.

The loud noise of the loft’s door being opened and then closed, jerked Brian abruptly off his painful musings, and he turned around to see who was there. He saw Justin carefully stepping around his discarded clothes, and then looking up at him with hurt, sad eyes. Brian had thought _Mikey’s_ tears could be too much for him to bear… but now Justin’s ones were threatening to break him.

“I booked a flight right after I heard, but this is as soon as I’ve been able to be here. I’m so sorry, Brian… I wish I was here when it happened.”

“Nothing to be sorry about, Sunshine.” Brian whispered before closing the distance that separated him from Justin, and pulling him against himself to hold him close. He felt Justin bury his face in his shoulder and let out a painful sigh… and then his arms hugged Brian’s body so hard, Brian thought he might break something. But he wasn’t about to ask Justin to stop.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Justin’s voice came muffled by Brian’s sweater, where Justin’s mouth was pressed.

“There’s nothing to say,” Brian replied, and he broke the contact with his lover’s body.

“Brian… she was your mother. Well, sort of. You need to talk about her death, you just need to.”

“I don’t _need_ to talk about anything, Justin. I don’t _want_ to talk about it.”

“Maybe I need you to talk about it, though. Maybe _I_ need to talk about it with you.” Justin’s voice was gentle, soothing, even if his speech had seemed demanding.

“What do you need to know? She was hit by a car, and now she’s dead. This is basically all there is to say about her death.” Brian remembered Michael’s face when they had learned what had happened. They were together, and Mikey had started crying immediately and clung to Brian… who, on the other hand, had just stood there. Feeling nothing. Feeling cold. A cold he was still feeling now, even if he had to admit that Justin’s mere presence had lessened the ice around his heart somehow. The lad always had had that kind of power.

“I didn’t want to talk about the details of her death, Brian. I need to know about _your reaction_ to it.”

“I’m fine. She wasn’t really my mother, you know?” It hurt to let out those words but Brian knew he had to say them, he knew it was the truth.

“Brian Kinney! Don’t you dare talk like that in front of me!” Debbie’s voice suddenly filled the loft, and Brian startled, not having heard the door opening again. She marched towards Brian and only stopped when the bowl of tuna and macaroni she had in her hands hit Brian’s stomach. “Joan wasn’t perfect, but she was your mother, and you should damn well remember it, you hear?”

With a last glare at Brian, Debbie turned around to put the bowl on the kitchen counter and she looked at Justin with a sad smile on her face. “It’s good to see you, Sunshine,” Debbie said to Justin, and then continued, pointing at the food she had brought, “I knew Brian wouldn’t think about eating something tonight so I made his favourite: tuna and macaroni.”

“It was never my favourite, Deb.” Brian said softly.

“You can keep saying that, kiddo, but I know you always fucking loved it. And you’re going to eat it tonight, got it? You too, Sunshine. Don’t they have food in New York? You’re so skinny I can barely see meat on those bones!”

“Don’t worry, Deb, his ass is still ‘meaty’,” Brian smirked watching Justin’s cheeks get red and Debbie roll her eyes. It actually felt good, Brian thought, to know he was still able to be sarcastic and joke. It made him feel less like a frozen doll and more like himself.

“Now I’m going to leave you two boys alone. But first, Brian, I want you to know that we’re all coming to the service tomorrow. The girls too, Lindsay told me she and Mel will be on the first flight tomorrow morning and they’ll be here in time for the funeral. They’re taking Gus and my grandaughter, too.” Debbie smiled at the thought of seeing both Gus and JR, and Brian had to admit that the thought of getting to spend some time with his Sonny Boy was comforting. But he had to ask…

“Why are they coming? It’s not like Joan was someone they cared about, and it’s not like she would have accepted their family had she known them!”

“Brian, they’re coming for _you_ ,” Justin said. “That’s why we’re all coming, that’s why we’re all here. For _you_ , not for her.”

Brian looked at Justin intently, and then nodded.

“And don’t you forget it!” Debbie said, pointing her finger at Brian and making him smile again.

Debbie made for the door after that last exchange, but then, as if in an afterthought, she turned around, walked towards Brian and, getting on the tip of her toes, she hugged him hard. Brian felt fifteen again, but this time he allowed his arms to encircle Deb’s body and he held her too. After a while, she released him, patted on his cheek and then said again sternly, “Eat!”

“Yes, Ma,” was Brian’s response and Debbie smiled, a hint of sadness in her eyes. Then she walked away, stopping only to pinch Justin’s cheek making him roll his eyes and making Brian laugh, and then she was gone.

“She’s right, you know? You should eat something, and if you don’t want Debbie’s food, I can fix you a salad or…”

“Or you can get naked and I can eat your cock.”

“No, Brian… well, not yet,” Justin replied. “I still want you to talk to me, you know?”

“Justin, you know I don’t like to talk about ‘feelings’,” Brian made quote marks with his fingers at the word ‘feelings.’

“Well, this time you have to, Brian. At least a little. Please?”

Brian sighed, knowing he didn’t have the strenght to argue with Justin that night, and knowing that maybe he didn’t even want to. “What do you want me to say?”

“Tell me what you feel. She was your mother, Brian, and even if she was far from being a good one… she was still yours.”

“Nothing,” Brian said in a whisper.

“What?”

“Nothing. I don’t feel anything. Well, aside from a fucking freezing cold in my bones that I haven’t been able to shake off since I heard what happened.”

Justin moved to stand right beside Brian and took his hands in his, willing Brian to look into his eyes. Brian did, and the love he read there completed the job that Justin’s and Debbie’s hugs, plus the news of Gus’ arrival, had started. The cold grip that had held his body and soul until then, finally vanished. Then Brian heard himself starting to talk.

“I was with Michael at Kinnetik, we were talking about some bullshit dinner Ben wants to organize for Hunter, and then Claire arrived. She was a mess, yes, but she’s always a mess so I thought nothing of it. And then she said it. She said ‘Mom’s dead, Brian. Mom’s dead.’ Mikey started crying; not really, just a few tears. He was hurting and he hugged me. Why would he cry, Justin? Why would he hurt for that… woman? Why would anyone cry about her?” Brian looked at Justin with tormented eyes.

“Michael wasn’t crying for her any more that Lindsay will be coming to her funeral for her, Brian. He was crying for you, because he knows you and he knows that despite everything your mother did to you, you always hoped that somewhere in her heart there could be a spot where she loved you. And now that she’s dead, you’ll never know for sure if that spot existed.” Justin squeezed Brian’s hands tight, hoping he’d understand he wasn’t saying all that to hurt him, only to help him.

Brian’s eyes seemed to want to bore into Justin’s forever. And then he nodded. “You know what I always thought? That the day she’d die I would be happy to finally get rid of her. Ding dong, the witch is dead!” Brian laughed, but it was a disturbing laugh, one that Justin hated to hear coming from him. “Instead I didn’t feel a damn thing. I wasn’t hurt, no, and I didn’t cry. But I wasn’t happy either. I was… nothing. Numb. Cold.”

Brian stopped talking and shook his head, as if to clear it from those difficult thoughts, and Justin understood he couldn’t really ask for more. Not that night anyway.

Justin released Brian’s hands and threw his arms around his neck. The two of them stood there for a long time, and this time Brian was the one hiding his face in Justin’s shoulder. When he felt a sigh coming out of Brian’s mouth, and his body finally relax, Justin thought it was time to distract Brian from the gloomy musings they had shared.

“You sure you’re not hungry, Brian?” Justin whispered in Brian’s ear.

“Only if your cock is on the plate. And your ass after that, of course,” was Brian’s predictable response and, with a laugh, Justin broke their embrace and guided Brian to their bedroom.

“How long are you staying?” Brian asked, watching Justin get rid of his T-shirt.

“Actually, I have finished taking care of everything a bit early so, even if I should have come back permanently in two months… I think I can manage to come back here now. If you’re willing to come help me pack and then take me back here, that is.” Justin finished with a knowing grin.

“I think I can be persuaded, Sunshine,” was Brian’s reply and it made Justin laugh.

“Well, lay down then! I have a lot of persuading to do. And maybe I can manage to warm you up too…”

“You already did, Justin. The moment you walked through that door.”


End file.
